L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Communist
Party of Canada

[This article
was published in 1948. For the full citation, see the end of the text.]

Communist
Party , the name applied since 1922
to the extreme left wing of the Labour movement in Canada. The party
was originally organized in 1921, after the virtual collapse of the
One Big Union, under the name of "The Workers' Party of Canada",
and was affiliated with the Third Communist International, with headquarters
in Moscow, Russia. At the convention held in Toronto in March, 1923,
the aims of the party were declared to be (1) the fight against unemployment,
(2) against the open shop, (3) for the eight-hour day, (4) against espionage,
whether by government or employees, (5) for free speech, (6) for freedom
to picket, (7) against injunctions as a means of intervening in labour
struggles, (8) against the intervention of the police and military forces
of the state in labour struggles, and (9) for the establishment of complete
political and economic relations with Soviet Russia. The convention
affirmed its resolution to work inside the Labour party, though without
sinking its communistic aims; and it re-affirmed its trade union policy,
which recognized the labour unions as the basic organizations of the
working class. As a subsidiary to the party, there was organized also
in 1923 the Young Communists' League of Canada, with the object of penetrating
the mass of the working-class youth with communist teaching.

The
policy of "boring from within" the Labour party promised at
first some success. At the annual convention of the Ontario section
of the Canadian Labour party, held at London , Ontario, in 1923, the
application of the Workers' party for affiliation was granted; and later
the Nova Scotia miners asked to be allowed to affiliate with the Third
International. But gradually the real character of the aims of the Communist
party, which contemplated the use of force in achieving revolution,
came to be appreciated by the labour unions; and after a prolonged struggle
between 1925 and 1929 the Communists were expelled from most of the
regular labour organizations in Canada. As a separate movement, however,
it continued to make its influence felt. By 1928 it had 144 branches,
with a total membership of 4,300. It was said, moreover, that the Young
Communists' League had 40 schools in Canada, with an attendance of 2,000
children, who were being taught communist doctrine. In 1928 the Communist
party of Canada sent delegates to the congress of the Third International
and the meeting of the Red International labour unions in Moscow .

The
alleged seditious character of the propaganda of the Communists brought
about in 1929 and subsequent years action by the police in Sudbury,
Montreal, Toronto, and other centres; and in 1931, after several years'
surveillance of the activities of the Communists by the department of
justice, Tim Buck, the political secretary of the party, and seven other
leaders of the party, were taken into custody, were convicted of seditious
conspiracy and of being members of an unlawful association, and were
sentenced to terms in the pentientiary, with the recommendation that
they should be deported from the country at the termination of their
sentences. Since this judgment was rendered, and was confirmed on appeal,
the Communist party, as a lawful organization, has ceased to exist;
though occasionally candidates appear in municipal, provincial, or federal
elections who bear the label "Communist".